Only From Scratch is over one month old and things are finally rocking around here. We have learned a lot about food blogging in this short time, particularly about taking pictures of food. What have we learned so far?
- Don’t use your iPhone to take pictures of food: The reviewers at Foodgawker and Tastespotting probably wanted to ban us for our first few submissions.
- Lighting matters: Until you really start looking at photos critically, you don’t realize what a huge difference lighting really makes. Natural light makes all the difference in the world and that’s really hard to see until you start comparing your own photos.
- Shadows are everywhere: Our first few submissions are full of creepy shadows of ourselves. Watch out for shadows, they are all over the place!
- Take lots of pictures: If we sort through lots of crappy photos and eventually we’ll find a winner (theoretically).
- Food photography is hard! Foolishly, I thought you could just snap a few pictures of whatever you’re cooking and call it a photograph. I was wrong. You can’t just slap things on a plate and expect it to look good. Lighting, props, colors and equipment matter.
I would like to thank the Foodgawker reviewer who took an extra moment to comment on my chocolate chip cookies submission rejection. Their feedback helped me to better understand what was wrong with the “composition” of my photo and I was able to adjust the submission and get my very first approval on the Holy Grail of food sites! After chasing that first approval, we woke up to not one, not two, but THREE accepted photos at Foodgawker!
As we plug along in the blogosphere we are learning that people are drawn to baked goods. This goes hand in hand with our mission to eliminate store bought breads! Another week down and not a crumb of purchased bread has entered this house! I’m not sure where we plan to go next in our quest for perfect homemade baked goods.
As January draws to a close, we’re delusional and believe that spring is right around the corner. Look for updates in our garden section as we dream up plans for our backyard garden. If you got this far, share us on the social site of your choice!